Another commissioned ranger, as all previously shown miniatures from this period this is Perry brothers' figure too. I don't want to rant again about bad casting and crappy quality (rifle is just plain wrong and ugly), so I will just say that I managed to practice a little bit painting faces... Thins like subtle tonal changes, stubble, eyes, etc...You can see first version of this miniature here.

This is one of the models with very long history of being worked on. I cut first parts from the sprues just after original release of this "then new" variant of Land Raider, back in mid nineties, and it was glued together somewhere in 2000 I think. Then I left it to rot... Well, I finally decided to finish it few months ago. As it turned out, model is very simple but still I managed somehow to glue some parts in very, very bad way. So... I had to carefully cut some parts, sand them, etc. Still - some damage was done. As you can see, I managed to finish las cannons barrels with two different gothic gargoyles heads variants. I noticed this little thing during painting and decided to left it as it is... It is chaotic tank after all;) Painting itself was rather tedious I think, black is very, very unforgiving colour to weather and highlight. Still - it is finished and next one will be better, I hope;).

Werewoolf Miniatures company has send two miniatures of their 28 mm "heroic" scale evil dwarves to be reviewed. They bear a little long name - "Sons of Adramelech Tartaruk Pyrobaras". Miniatures were send in a plastic zip bag, in separate pieces. This is regular practice of this manufacturer, which makes mixing different elements really easy. I like this as it allows for much greater variety of finished miniatures.

Both figures were undamaged. Quality casting is high - there are no bigger mould lines, misaligned forms traces, even thin resin foil, so frequent on miniatures casted from resin, are present in very limited quantity. The bigger fault I found were bended hand axes. Both of them were casted on separate sprue and both were badly distorted. As usual, hot water comes to help... There was also very small hole on the cheek of one of the heads which needs to be filled with greenstuff. Everything else was perfectly cast in commonly used grey resin. Cuts made with knife and cleaning with a Citadel mould removal tool has shown that resin is rather soft and easily workable.

Figures were sculpted by Marcin Szymański, who sculpted all miniatures released by Werewoolf so far I believe. One can describe the visual style of Tartaruk Pyrobaras as a mix between esthetics of old Chaos Dwarves by Games Workshop and a look of ancient Persian warriors (again, Citadel's Chaos Dwarves were very loosely based on them too).

Miniatures in my possession are labelled as pyrobaras warriors. They are armed with deadly weapons mixing flamers and blunderbusses in one. I like the look of the weapons but I think it may be a point of controversy for other gamers, as they have distinctively more modern look then rest of the pyrobaras' equipment. Speaking about stunties' gear - it is rather archetypical in look - lameller armour, skulls and lightnings icons, curly long beards. To sum it up - Werewoolf Sons of Adramelech look like all good Hashut believers should;). It is also worth to note that Sons of Adramelech miniatures have that distictive feel of old-school figures made by a human in a old-fashioned way - with hands, tools and greenstuff. They certainly weren't digitally sculpted. Some like it (I like), some prefer more modern, technical look of 3D designed miniatures.

I really like these miniatures and I think that painting them will be a real joy. Higly recommended for all Chaos Dwarves players out there.

Krell was a mighty Chaos champion long before the birth of the Empire. At this time there were only a few scattered tribes of men who were nothing more than barbarians with few skills and little learning. Krell was the ruler of one such tribe that was corrupted by the Chaos god, Khorne. Krell quickly carved out an empire amongst the barbarian tribes of the north and then turned against the Dwarfs to the south. This was during the period the Dwarfs call the Time of Woes, when their empire had been riven by earthquakes and volcanic explosions, then assaulted by massed tribes of Orcs, Goblins, Skaven and other evil creatures. Krell allied with the Night Goblins who stormed the Dwarf Strongholds of Karak Ungor and Karak Varn and his name is recorded many times in the Great Book of Grudges. He was finally slain by the Dwarf Hero Grimbul Ironhelm during the assault on Karak Kadrin.

Krell's followers carried away his body and buried it in a crudely wrought tomb on the edge of the area now known as the Chaos Wastes. Nearly 1,500 years later Nagash came upon this tomb whilst he was searching for his lost Crown of Sorcery. Nagash had heard much of Krell and his brief but bloody reign, so he raised the mighty warrior from the dead. Krell was placed in command of one of Nagash's Undead legions when he fought against Sigmar at the Battle of the River Reik.

Krell's forces were to attack the Empire's Dwarf allies, giving him the chance to avenge his defeat centuries before. Leading his legion from the front, Krell smashed into the Dwarfs. The battle raged furiously, the Dwarfs stubbornly refusing to give ground against the seemingly endless ranks of Undead troops. But just as it seemed that the Dwarf line was crumbling, Sigmar cut down Nagash. In moments, the Undead army was all but destroyed, as units turned to dust without Nagash's will to keep them alive. Only Krell survived and at the head of his troops, he was only just able to battle his way through the Dwarf lines and escape.

Sigmar's forces were exhausted by the battle and did not pursue him immediately. This proved to be a mistake, for such human frailties did not worry Krell or his Undead followers. Marching night and day Krell led his remaining troops on a dance of destruction that cut a bloody swathe across the fledgling Empire. Entire communities were destroyed, towns sacked and castles burned to the ground, while the cities of the Empire filled with refugees fleeing from Krell's army. He was finally cornered by Sigmar and defeated at the Battle of Glacier Lake, and imprisoned in a magically constructed tomb. To this day, tales of Krell and his doomed legion are still told round campfires and taverns across the Empire.

Hundreds of years later Heinrich Kemmler came across Krell's tomb. He struck a deal with the warrior and freed him to do his bidding, or so he thought. In fact, Kemmler's wanderings in the mountains had been subtly guided by Nagash as part of a cunning and evil plan that would free Krell and unite him with the Lichemaster, so that he could unleash these two powerful Undead champions against Bretonnia. Nagash's plans suffered a minor setback following the heavy casualties the combined forces suffered at the Battle of La Maisontaal Abbey, but in time they are sure to bear rich and terrible fruit.

(Excerpt from "Warhammer Armies: Undead" book, written by Jervis Johnson and Bill King, published by Games Workshop in 1994. Krell himself is, of course, much older then this description. He was one of the major characters of "Terror of the Lichemaster" WFB 2nd. edition minicampaign pack. As the decriptions of characters from this campaign are very short, I decided to use this one, slightly newer but much more detailed. Krell is one of the few very old undead characters still present in Warhammer Fantasy Battle game. Rules for him were published in current edition of "Vampire Counts" army book and new miniature is in stores.

First of the second batch of six Rangers from the American War of Independence sculpted by Perry brothers. Actually, all six of them were started few weeks ago but due to unexpected delays I was able to finish them now. All six of them are really nice miniatures and this one has great bag on the back, a joy to paint. If only rifle would be better sculpted... Face is rather crude too but I tried hard to paint it in a natural looking finish. It took a long time I may add...

Miniature was commissioned of course, it is a part of larger AWI force which was already shown on the blog.

Model of Prince Imrik riding a dragon made a huge impact on me when it was released, in its first incarnation about twenty years ago. I loved all the small details, pose of the rider and its mount, colours and painting - in short, I liked it a lot. And I remember that I was really reluctant when it was a time to paint this model - not only it was huge but it was really, really expensive back then in Poland. Well, dragon was much needed for High Elves army of my brother so I just had to paint it anyway...

Twenty years later it sits again at my desk, slightly battered but still proud. It shows signs of passing time, of course, paintjob is really bad, miniature itself is damaged here and there. And it was so dusted that I spent more then a hour trying to clean it...One thing is priceless - all memories came back again...

Dragon was painted for my bro's army of elves of course, my army of choice were undead back then (and Vampire Counts now).

Second of the warriors of the Striking Scorpions warriors painted by Mormeg. My brother described painting in great details, so I won't reapeat that. I just would like to add that I like such darker, more sinister colours, different then GW Studio's version. It lacks this candy sweetnes, so characteristic for Eavy Metal paintings. I think that graphic that is shown at the very end of the note shows Striking Scorpion in a "realistic" way.